Archive for February, 2010

Very exciting news! The Freeware Edition of Dispatcher now fully includes Patch Mode. You can create as many Binary Patches, Updaters, and Installers as you want! To support this model of giving away all of Dispatcher’s key features for free, there is now a Self-Advertisement Page displayed (only) after successful updates are applied. The other editions do not have this advertisement.

Dispatcher is an amazingly easy to implement and maintain solution for releasing installers and updates to the software that you are developing. With only a few clicks, you can include an Updater with your software and create an Installer. Then, when you want to release updates, only a few more clicks are required before your users are automatically updated to your newest version.

Also exciting are the previously mentioned changes that apply to all editions of Dispatcher. Auto-Archiving means you no longer have to worry about previously released versions. Even in Patch Mode, just point Dispatcher to where the current version of your software is, and Dispatcher takes care of everything else.

Full Extension Mask Support means that Free Web Hosts are now supported no matter which Dispatcher settings you are using, even if you choose to disable Compression.

Dispatcher is now easier to use, with greater support for Free Web Hosts, and full support for making binary patches for free! Why wait? Check out Dispatcher today!

A major update to Dispatcher is approaching. Here is a sneak preview of some of the features:

1) New Side-Logo

This Logo was designed by Brandon Cassata, and comes in a different color for each edition of Dispatcher. Of course, you can also pick your own Side Logo in all editions of Dispatcher.

2) Auto-Archiving for Patch Mode

Dispatcher is all about taking the work out of the distribution of initial versions and subsequent updates thereto. By answering only a few questions, Dispatcher creates installers for you, bundles an Updater with your software, and uploads new versions of your software to your website, allowing users to be updated by efficient binary patches. But to make such patches, you have to keep around old versions of your software, so Dispatcher can calculate the most efficient way to patch an old version to your new version.

Before now, you had to manually decide on an organization of where to keep your old versions. Many software developers just have a single “Release” folder with their current version, and they don’t want to have to think about any version before that one. Well, now you can stop worrying about old versions, and let Dispatcher archive your versions for you. With the Auto-Archive feature, Dispatcher will retain archive copies of previously released versions for you, so you only have to think about one version of your software: the latest!

When you want to add a new version, just click “Add Version”, and leave the path of this version’s folder the same as it was for the last version, if you want, and you’re ready to release!

3) Full Extension Mask Support

This was a feature partially added a while ago to ensure that all files that made up the update data would have a “.zip” extension, no matter what type of data it was. This way, many Free Hosts that allow direct file downloads, but not strange extensions, are pleased. Now, even if you turn off Sync Compression, all Update Data is Extension Masked.

4) ???

There is one more major change approaching, but you’ll have to stick around to find out what it is.

While still early in development, all testers will notice that upon running Smiley Country today, the Dispatcher-made Updater will get you updated to the new version. This is only a minor update, fixing some bugs, and changing some parameters of how the forest dynamically grows. You will notice some features partially implemented, like currency. For more details, see the Devlog.

The next major release will include some economy basics, like the creation of money, and the buying and selling to/from buildings, and of course the feature where buildings can actually do things.

If you are just installing the game for the first time starting today, you will notice that you no longer need Admin rights to Install, Update, or (as before) Play the game. This is thanks to an optional feature of Dispatcher, which causes your Installers to use a Chrome-like install method to bypass the need for Admin rights. Enjoy procrastinating!

Hey there! This is the first post of the new news system. If you are reading this in the distant future, please realize that Puchisoft had news way before this news system came out. If you want to see some, check out the Announcement forum.

My plan is to automatically spread posts I make here all over the place (RSS support is build in, so you can start adding this to your Google Reader now), with Twitter first. Then my hope is to be able to get these news stories onto the front page of Puchisoft automatically.